This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Those were the first two words offered by Sandro Lisi after he and co-accused Jamshid Bahrami were found not guilty by a judge Friday on a slew of itsy-bitsy drug charges, including trafficking in marijuana. To be precise, 288 grams of marijuana.

Lisi — known to one and all as occasional driver for and great friend to former mayor (open Rob Ford's policard)Rob Ford — was explaining to a reporter why he would not be making any statement outside the Old City Hall courthouse, where a phalanx of media cameras awaited.

See, “shy” is not a descriptor I would ever have associated with Lisi, though he’s certainly been close-mouthed since the whole Ford scandal broke wide open in 2013. He hasn’t, far as we know, rolled on Rob, who hasn’t been charged with anything in relation to drugs and crack houses and gang members.

Article Continued Below

In any event, Lisi changed his mind and did speak, briefly, flanked by happy lawyers.

“Relieved,” he said, about the ruling from Justice Ramez Khawly.

As one of the most everywhere present of Ford’s acolytes in those tumultuous days, Lisi was caught up in the melodrama, either as collateral damage or intensely involved player.

Last month, following a preliminary hearing, Lisi was committed to trial for allegedly extorting a convicted gang member in his attempts to retrieve that notorious video of Ford smoking crack.

I see no reason to describe it as an alleged video. We know, because cops have told us, that a video exists and that it’s now in police possession. And of course Ford ultimately, stunningly, came clean on the matter: He did smoke crack and had for months, as investigative reportage reached fever pitch, lied about it out of “embarrassment”.

Evidence heard at the prelim is under a routine publication ban and can’t be reported yet.

That’s not what this trial was about. Except — let’s be frank — it was.

Had he been just some schmo suspected of drug trafficking, in cahoots with the operator of a dry cleaning establishment — Bahrami, who has a medical marijuana license to grow and use grass — there would surely have been no Project Brazen 2 spinoff, no sophisticated surveillance undertaken, no GPS tracking, no eyeballing police aircraft overhead and no undercover officer posing as a petty dealer looking for a drug supplier befriending Bahrami as a prelude — “vast conspiracy”, in the words of Lisi’s lawyer, Domenic Basile — to what can fairly be characterized as a sting operation.

Lisi was arrested, in this case, when he stepped outside the cleaner’s with $900 in marked police money from a drug deal which had purportedly transpired 90 minutes earlier. Bahrami’s lawyer, Jacob Stilman, argued during trial that Bahrami was actually acting on behalf of that undercover cop, Det. Ross Fernandes, not Lisi. The D-crew maintained that Fernandes was under intense pressure from his superiors to involve Lisi in a drug deal and had essentially turned Bahrami — legal drug user — into an “unwitting agent.’’

A complicated and multi-faceted operation which, despite all the investigatory tools summoned, ended up in an evidentiary fizzle, pfftz, when the case got to court.

Much Ado About Nothing, as Khawly put it in his decision, noting that “Project’s aspiration for the capture of big game never got off the ground.”

In the end (including a separate deal with another deadbeat trafficker), a 680-gram sale of marijuana and $3,100 in proceeds — what all that effort came down to. And insufficient — or unconvincing — evidence from the Crown of a drug enterprise afoot, as Khawly kicked out all eight charges against the defendants.

“Stripped of the elephant looming large in the courtroom, this case is as mundane as they come.”

But because Khawly is an entertaining judge, he took some two hours reading his decision getting to the acquittal, sounding at times more like he was on the Catskills circuit.

Normally, Khawly pointed out, “half a pound of marijuana at Old City Hall is not something of any interest beyond the courtroom.”

This was Lisi in the dock, however (and the poor, shuffling, clearly-in-physical-pain Bahrami, who sobbed outside the courtroom afterward).

“Those of us in the administration of justice at Old City Hall live in a fairly insular entertainment,” said Khawly. “Although arguably the busiest court in Canada, we are a fairly tight and small fraternity. We toil away from the public eye, on a daily basis, trying to dispense justice on a panoply of offences ranging from shoplifting to murder.

“Occasionally and sometimes for the most surprising and unexpected reasons, a fairly routine case gets elevated to a supernova striking a chord where the media glare becomes intense.”

And oh, he was clearly basking in it.

“This is when one sees a sea change in the behaviour of all the players in the courtroom. The judge struggles to present some semblance of a regal and wise figure. The lawyers preen and impart clever asides. The court staff rediscovers a more dignified bearing. And who knows what effect it has on a witness’s evidence.”

Cut to the chase: How did this gossamer-slight case get here?

Khawly was palpably unimpressed with the Crown’s key witness, Det. Fernandes. In the cop’s interactions with Bahrami, “he pushes, he cajoles, he demands, he dangles baubles . . . Bahrami in that recording comes across as a trapped animal who simply has no exit.”

Under cross-examination, the officer “bob and weaved’’ and “never categorically agreed that Lisi was the main driver of this investigation.”

Of course he was.

Khawly ticked off the pressures that may have been brought to bear on Fernandes: High-profile case, “powerful police brass counting on him,” career advancement, bucking for a promotion (“nothing sinister about that in and of itself”), perhaps misinterpreting or embellishing evidence “with white lies.”

“Or is it more troubling? Did he purposely set out to deceive this Court?”

The judge answered his own question: “I kept looking for areas where eventually the (undercover officer) would shore up his credibility. It proved to be a fruitless exercise. The long and short of it is that on all material points, I simply cannot rely on his evidence. I will leave it at that.”

But take the undercover cop out of the equation and precious little was left. Certainly not enough for conviction on any of the charges.

Again: How did we get here?

Police brass — and the Crown office — need to answer that question. But they won’t.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com